The use of electric devices in every day life is constantly on the increase. A majority of the population already carry mobile phones, PDAs or MP3-players with them on a regular basis. Apart from miniaturization of the devices, efforts are made to an increasing extent to integrate functions of the devices in textiles. For instance textiles are to be equipped with electric and electronic functions. Yet, it is of great importance here that the fundamental properties of the textiles, such as the wearing comfort, are not affected substantially.
From WO 03/052541 A2 and US 2004/0259391 A1 textiles are known which have single electric conductor lines. These conductor lines are selectively integrated in the textiles so as to connect or join specific electric components such as e.g. ICs.
The known textiles are provided with conductor lines at certain points only which are each arranged in an optimum manner for one particular application only. The conductor lines constitute point-to-point connections as they are known from flying wiring in electronics. Hence, for each new function that is to be integrated in a textile a new fabric having the appropriate conductor lines must be produced. Very often these conductor lines are therefore applied to or integrated subsequently in the textile, e.g. by imprinting the conductor lines or sewing them in. On the one hand this involves a great amount of work and on the other hand the circuits produced thereby are in many cases not particularly resistant and no longer function correctly after a short time.
Conventional printed circuit boards or circuit boards can only be used to a limited degree for the integration into textiles. They are inflexible and stiff. When functions are to be integrated in textiles by using conventional printed circuit boards the textile quickly loses its textile properties such as the wearing comfort. Likewise, other circuit boards, such as the ones on films, can only be employed to a limited extent for the integration in textiles. Despite the fact that the films do constitute an improvement compared to the conventional inflexible printed circuit boards, they deteriorate the textile properties unintentionally.